Disclaimer: They still aren't mine. Sigh.

Warning: Some stuff gets discussed between Harry and Snape that might be considered a little dark. I don't think Snape had a lot of reason to be a nice person when he was a kid and there must have been something in him that was drawn to the Death Eaters. It's a shame Harry can't change the future, no?

Other warnings: not much happens in this chapter. It's mostly blah blah blah.

ooOOoo

Chapter 19: Thinking inside the Box

The day continued like that: Snape sneaking him food at lunchtime and dinner, and Harry sleeping through the remaining hours. He tended to wake up disoriented at times, wondering why the dormitory was crumbling and bare, and where Ron and Neville and everyone else was. Then he'd find something to eat – one of the apples, or some curling toast, or some cold potato salad – and he'd slip back into sleep again.

There were dreams – some of them a little disturbing, like the one where he was in the trophy room cleaning a trophy which had his name on it. It was for saving one S. Snape from a werewolf attack and, in the way of dreams, Harry saw how while saving Snape he'd managed to kill the werewolf and the werewolf's three friends who'd set Snape up. Harry was rubbing the silver cup, trying to change his name back to his father's as it should be before his father's death meant Harry would never be born, when his hands started fading. He tried to rub faster, but because he was disappearing the rubbing cloth fell to the ground. He woke up and checked his hands, wondering with the befuddlement of sleep if he killed his father by accident would he disappear suddenly, or slowly like in the dream?

Apart from the occasional mini-nightmare it was good to sleep, but something in him was getting bored and impatient. He only had five days. Would he waste them all sleeping like this? When he woke after the short nap he'd taken after Snape had left him to eat dinner while he served a detention (the thought of Snape having a grudgingly-admitted detention made Harry smile; he would have to find out what it was for) the sun must have been setting, because the faint light reflected from the sky through the narrow, east-facing window was pink-tinged and fading fast. Really, Harry thought, it was up to him to do something today. The gloves had pointed at Snape. Snape was the key to finding the sickle. And Snape used this room.

There was a box in the room.

Harry had noticed it last night and again on the rare occasion today his eyes had been open. The box might be important. If nothing else, it was something to investigate to take the edge off his boredom.

He knelt by the box and touched the latch.

"Ouch!" There was a green spark which jumped out and grounded itself on his fingers. Harry shook his hand and sucked at his stinging fingers as he swore softly. A small slip of paper popped into existence over the box and drifted down like an autumn leaf. Harry caught it before it hit the floor.

Snape's writing said: Leave the box alone. It's none of your business.

Damn and blast.

Oh well, he'd just have to be careful to put everything back where he found it before Snape came back. And he'd said that he probably wouldn't be back until after curfew. The thought of Snape sneaking around after curfew made Harry smile as much as the thought of him in detention had. It was as if Snape was so wise to Harry's misdemeanours because he'd done them all as a student himself.

There was a knotty series of lock charms on the box. As the room went completely dark and he had to make a small fireglobe to float over his project, Harry found himself enjoying the challenge. It wasn't often he was presented with a challenge like this: during the whole Goblet of Fire fiasco he'd been given plenty of challenges, and it wasn't like the other years had been bland and lacking in thorny problems, but this was like a quiet chess game with Ron, something which didn't have some sort of do-or-die mandate to it. Well, if Snape caught him at it there would almost definitely be a "die" component, but Harry told himself that if he hadn't solved the lock before Snape came back he'd try and find some subtle way of asking what was in the box.

He'd –

The box opened with a faint whiff of broken sealing charms. Harry lifted the lid carefully in case something nasty shot out. He wouldn't put it past Snape to be Pandora's heir. When nothing happened, he peered inside, brimming with hope. It had been so well warded the Golden Sickle must be inside. That or the Philosopher's Stone. Or some other relic of immense power and value.

So it was with a massive disappointment and the surety that there must be a false bottom in the box hiding something that Harry saw –

He looked up guiltily as the door opened.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Snape screamed. His face was flushed as he drew his wand on Harry, his hand shaking with fury. He kicked the door shut behind him and the soundproofing charm rippled over it. "Who the f-?"

Harry didn't bother with magic. He hit out, knocking Snape's wand out of his hand, then lunged forward, barrelling into the other boy and knocking the wind out of him. Snape struggled and tried to bite but Harry snatched his hand back just in time and rolled Snape over before Snape could kick him. Panting as his brief strength threatened to leave him again, he got Snape in a headlock.

"Stop it," he gasped in Snape's ear. A lethal gaze was levelled at him from those black eyes and Snape snarled like a tiger.

Bites and kicks and snarls; Harry was unnerved enough to never let Snape out of this lock. Either Snape was insane, had rabies, or was simply really, really upset. And he didn't know why his opening the box would send Snape into this frothing fit. He sent silent thanks to Dean Thomas, who'd taught him this manoeuvre, and promised himself he'd suggest Remus add martial arts to the DADA curriculum.

"Stop it," he said more strongly. "You… Hey! Listen to me. Listen! Hey… Look, if you bite me I swear I'm going to bite you back," he threatened as Snape snapped at his arm. "Damn it, Severus, you are going to listen to me if I have to have you in a headlock all night!"

Snape stopped wriggling and lay still, his face dark with anger. Harry knew he'd have to talk fast.

"I'm looking for something that belonged to the Founders. The gloves… they were meant to bring me within range of it. They pointed at you and you'd left a note suggesting this box contained something valuable of yours. So I thought maybe what I was looking for was in this box."

"I see," Snape said, sounding much calmer that his expression (which had that old familiar murderous look) suggested. "So you were looking for – what? The Enchanted Pink Floyd Album of Rowena Ravenclaw? Or perhaps Salazar Slytherin's favourite Orwellian Novel of Doom? I'm afraid I've lent out Godric Gryffindor's runic copy of Lord of the Rings."

"Um. No." And yes, Harry felt as stupid as Snape suggested he was. A couple of Muggle records and some books were all he'd seen in the box. Oh, and a bottle he'd not had time to identify. Probably, knowing Snape, filled with poison he'd try on Harry as soon as Harry let him out of the headlock. "Um. Ahh… The Golden Sickle of Helga Hufflepuff, actually."

"So not quite what you were expecting?"

"No. Um. If… if I let you go will you hex me?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe I won't let you go, then."

Snape wriggled angrily but Harry was ready for that. He wasn't a wrestler, but he had the advantage of leverage and Snape didn't seem to know how to break the hold. Thank Merlin.

"If you break my neck, Lovegood, I swear I'll show you just how bad poltergeists can get."

"Hey, if I let you go I'll be the poltergeist."

"If you let me go and I promise not to chop you into little pieces with the Ginsu slicing charm I learned last summer, will you promise to tell me what's going on?"

Harry considered this.

"I'll tell you as much as I can," he said. "Because I can't tell you everything. But… I think maybe the gloves brought me here not because this is where the Sickle is, but because this is where someone who can help me find it is. You." He was having a terrible impulse to stroke Snape's hair like he would calm an unsettled Simon. Apart from the greasiness, there were two other things which suggested that would be supremely bad idea: firstly, Snape wasn't a horse and wouldn't react well to being patronised. And secondly, Snape would think Harry was making a pass at him and go completely ballistic. Or not go completely ballistic (and Harry didn't want to deal with that, either, let alone think about it).

"You're having me on."

Harry sighed. "Upon my word as a wizard, I will tell you what I know if for no other reason that that you may be the person who can best help me."

A pause.

"All right," Snape said. "Now get off me."

Harry did so, helped along by a vicious shove from Snape. "Hey!"

"Are you coming out in boils? No? Then stop complaining."

Harry rubbed his shoulder and glowered. But he didn't stop Snape from picking up his wand. Snape crawled over to the other wall and sat against it, glowering back at Harry. They sat there, glaring at each other, until Harry decided enough was enough.

"I came here looking for the Golden Sickle of Helga Hufflepuff. I used a dry potion spell and Mendeleev gloves to bring me to this place" – he noticed Snape's thoughtful frown at the mention of a dry potion and the gloves – "and I need the Sickle to prepare a special potion based on mistletoe."

"Celtic?"

"Looks that way. White sheet to catch the fruit of the moon, blah, blah blah. But to get the special mistletoe I need a special tool to harvest it."

Snape nodded, looking interested despite himself. "You're using a linen sheet and spring snow mistletoe, then."

"I haven't heard it referred to as that."

"Are you using it to break an oak-tree grounded spell?"

"Yes," said Harry, and, "How in Merlin's name do you know this?"

Snape smirked. "I was interested in mistletoe's applications within Dark Arts. Or Defence Against," he added with a shrug. "Mistletoe has no particular affinity towards Light or Dark magic. It can be used for or against either."

"Really? Well, I need it because the Hogwarts I come from has been isolated from the rest of the world by some really powerful Dark wizard, and if we don't break the spell, eventually we'll starve."

"Oh. That kind of gives you a bit of motivation, I guess."

"So you'll help me?"

Snape ignored the question in favour of prodding at his knee. "Ouch. You've stuffed my knee again. It's not good to cast the same healing charm so quickly… now I really will have to see that nosy old biddy Pomfrey." He glared at Harry. "I don't see why I should help you. What's in it for me?"

Harry was stumped. "Because… people will die if you don't help me…"

"Maybe you've mistaken me for someone who likes people. But the truth is that if there weren't a few people here I don't hate, and if I didn't suspect that Hogwarts has alarms that would sound against that sort of thing, I'd slip poison into the water of this school and kill everyone within it."

If Harry had been stumped before, there were no words for how he felt now. 'Numb' came close, but didn't properly sum up this horrible sinking feeling he felt in his gut at being faced with such pragmatic hate. "You don't mean that."

Snape shrugged. "Not every day, I admit. But some days I'm tempted to try just to see how many I'd get before they stopped me."

Appalled. Yes. That was the word Harry had been looking for. "Maybe you feel that way now," he said quietly, feeling out this conversation for the hidden land-mines, "but if you did that then one day – some day in the future if it wasn't immediately – you'd regret it. And you'd regret it profoundly and cripplingly."

Snape hung his head, letting his hair cover his expression. "I know," he said softly, almost despairingly, "but some days the future seems like it will never come no matter what I do."

Harry struggled for words. "Sometimes… sometimes when the world is my enemy and everyone thinks I'm there to be their punching-bag, I ask myself why I bother sticking around. Some days it's like the world has its eyes on me – things get written about me in the Daily Prophet – stupid, false, malicious things – and people believe them so easily that I get nothing but Howlers for breakfast. And maybe I should leave. But I don't. Maybe it's because I'm scared that if I go somewhere else it'll be worse."

"And why is it really?"

"I think… I think it's because the people who raised me hate me so much that everyone else seems mild in comparison. And I've got friends at Hogwarts – two good friends who've risked their lives for me. And I might never be so lucky in my friends again."

Snape said softly, "What if you had no friends?"

Harry looked him in the eyes as best as he could through that greasy curtain of hair. "Then yeah, maybe I'd feel like you do. But I'd keep telling myself that there will come a day when I'll be free. And when that day comes I'm going to fly out of the whole thing like a bird and everyone who's ever been cruel to me or bullied me or just not stuck up for me because it's easier not to can go to Hell because I don't need them half as much as they need me."

"I've got to wait more than a year for that."

"Me, too."

There was silence again, but a more companionable silence. Then Harry said, "So will you help me? For a bunch of people who you don't know, who'll never appreciate what you do, and only deserve your help because it's the right thing to do?"

"I hate the right thing."

Harry smiled to himself, thinking, as if for the first time, about Snape's future role as a spy for the Order. Had he hated it? Harry was struck by a brief memory of Snape's face in the Infirmary when Dumbledore asked him (as Harry guessed later) to go back and infiltrate the Death Eaters. Snape had been almost green with terror at the mere thought.

"What would the Severus Snape from your version of the universe do?"

Harry swallowed. "He… I don't know. I didn't know him very well as he was a few years ahead of me. But we were definitely fighting on the same side." When we weren't busy fighting each other. "He… Look, things are different there."

"You talk about him in the past tense."

Hell. Harry hadn't meant that to slip out. "There's a really nasty wizard called Voldemort. He killed my parents. He killed the Severus Snape from my world."

Snape's skinny shoulders had hunched in on him, at the name Voldemort or the mention of his counterpart's death.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" Snape said quietly. "I never met him. Maybe I should be consoling you."

Harry shrugged lopsidedly. "Like I said, I never really knew him that well. But he must have hated Voldemort as much as I do to go up against him like he did." Yes; how much would you need to hate someone to stay within their claustrophobic, sick little world to spy on them, knowing that if you were found out, the best you could hope for was a quick, clean killing curse? What sort of person could do that? He studied the boy crouching opposite him more closely for a moment until the narrowed glare told him his interest wasn't appreciated.

"I'm not your Snape, you know."

Harry winced. The lies lay bitter on the back of his tongue. He needed to find some point of separation between the living and the dead: he couldn't keep seeing Snape as someone whose death had been so complete no-one had yet found the body. And he couldn't easily deal with someone he'd spent so many years hating. Reciprocally. Taking a small breath, he said, "No. You're younger. Severus."

Severus sniffed, the slight shiftiness around his eyes betraying that he'd been unnerved by Harry's news. "And I've got a pulse. That puts me one up on your version. So…" he sneered. "We're best buddies on a first name basis now, Harry?"

Harry couldn't help grinning. "Yeah, why not?" Apart from anything else, it might be fun to practise some of Mr Python's ideas on a human. The book had given good results for Draco – Harry suspected Snape at any age beyond six months would be the acid test for his skills at People Muttering. He just had to be perceptive enough to –

Unfortunately, Severus himself wasn't exactly a sloth at being perceptive.

"Why does the Prophet write articles about you? Are you famous or something?"

Harry grimaced. "Yeah. Once upon a time there was a big, bad wizard, and he went and killed the parents of a baby. When he tried to kill the baby, his curse rebounded on him. So everyone decided the baby must be special instead of the parents who'd died defending him… thus giving him an edge on the Dark Wizard's magic."

"Oh. Right. Voldemort?"

"Sort of a previous incarnation. It gets complicated and I still don't know exactly what's going on."

"Sounds like a normal day at Hogwarts. Sorry about your parents, though."

Harry shrugged, thrilled and chilled at the urge that kept sneaking up on him: he could walk out of this room, into Gryffindor Tower (well – the Pink Lady wouldn't let him in, but he could sit outside and wait) and find his parents. It was the dream he'd always kept closest to his heart. Hope, even trickier than love, made him feel ill. "Thanks."

"Wouldn't have happened to me," Snape continued conversationally. "My parents would have thrown me at the evil wizard as some sort of distraction and then legged it as fast as they could. Wish they were dead."

Harry, frowning, said, "You don't mean that."

"Don't tell me what I mean when it comes to my family, Lovegood. If you knew them you'd probably kill them just to do me a favour."

"You don't do people favours by killing other people."

"Maybe." Snape toed the napkin-wrapped bundle in the corner. He must have dropped it when he flew at Harry. "Dinner. If you still want it. You still look a bit rough."

"I still feel a bit rough," Harry admitted. "But I've only got five days. Well, four now."

"I've got classes tomorrow. I could skip some, but I don't know how to help you. Your gloves made a mistake choosing me."

"I doubt it. Do you have a free period? Or should we wait until after classes?"

"I've got a free period in the afternoon. Straight after lunch. What do you want to do?"

"I'd like to find this Sickle as fast as possible."

Snape laughed shortly. "Is that all? Well, I guess we could start by finding where Helga might have left it. It's said all the Founders had their own secret areas where they could work without being interrupted. Myths."

"Like the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry said. "I found that in my second year."

Snape looked impressed. "I looked for that myself, but didn't have any luck. How'd you find it?"

Harry didn't want to say he was a Parselmouth. "I had luck. Or otherwise. Considering there was a basilisk down there, it's open for debate."

"Well, if one exists maybe the others do, too. Possibly with a triffid instead of a basilisk in Hufflepuff's secret room. Do you think you could recreate the way you found the Chamber?"

Harry shuddered. "Merlin, I hope not."

"Well in that case I guess we'd better see if we can find the books I used in third year. I'll have a look in the library."

"Do you want to do that now? Then I can come too."

"Hmm. No. It's a bit risky. The House Elves know I'm here, but they might get a bit difficult if I start doing extra stuff I shouldn't. I don't want them reporting me. I could put a glamour on you. You'd look completely unremarkable and could come with me to look around the castle. If we're careful."

It sounded risky. But Harry had been cooped up in this room for – well, he didn't know, but it was far too long. "Sounds good. Are you staying here tonight?"

"I thought I should see Pomfrey about my knee."

"What about her questions?"

"I'll tell her I tripped. She already thinks I'm pretty clumsy." Snape gave a triangular, humourless smile. "I trip at least three times a week badly enough to have to see her."

"Doesn't she get suspicious?" Harry sure was. Snape moved with nowhere near the gliding, prowling walk he would have as an adult, but even with his current I've just grown tall and don't know what to do about it gangliness he didn't seem clumsy. But then he was in Slytherin House and felt like he needed to sleep somewhere else for safety, so probably some of the other Slytherins were giving him hell. Oh well – serve him right for the hell he'd give Gryffindors in the future, although it made his favouritism to Slytherin a bit strange. Harry felt a little guilty for thinking something so smug, especially as Sna- Severus had been bringing him food and was right now thinking aloud ways to help Harry. Snape of the future was dead and gone. Right now Harry owed Severus some gratitude.

"I know some healing spells," Harry said. "Do you want me to have a look at your knee? I promise I won't do a Lockhart…" Oops.

Severus' eyes bugged at him. Then he laughed. "Don't tell me you have some puffed-up prat poncing around your school, telling everyone how fantastic he is?"

"Had," Harry corrected. "Memory spell he tried to cast backfired. He's currently St Mungos Patient of the Month."

Severus laughed again, short but without bitterness. "Fan-bloody-tastic! Do you know he tried to give me a make-over?"

Harry nearly swallowed his tongue and clapped his hand over his mouth in case he laughed the castle down around their ears. "What did you do?"

"Hid."

Harry laughed again. "So will you let me fix your knee? Tell me the spell you used, first – then I'll know if I can use one that's different enough not to react with the first one."

Severus agreed grudgingly. And was pleased when Harry knew a healing spell he didn't. After testing his weight on his newly-healed leg, he had Harry teach him the spell. "Brilliant. That makes up for having to – never mind."

Harry had the wisdom not to ask what Severus had had to do to sneak food to him and avoid questions. He knew from experience that it was tricky. "Excellent," Severus said. "Now there's more time for me to get the glamour right." He slumped down opposite Harry again and bit into an apple, picked up a piece of paper and a stub of pencil, and began to sketch.

Harry, intrigued, tried to peer over at the drawing. With only a few strokes of the pencil Snape had already caught the basics of Harry's features. "That's pretty good," he said.

Severus scowled. "I need to get it right and I can't do it if you're leaping around all over the place."

"Huh. As if I am."

"Eat your dinner."

"Yes, Mum."

Severus snorted.

Harry finished the food quickly enough – some cold potatoes and slices of beef tucked into a roll with lettuce and given extra flavour from a jar of relish Severus had sneaked off with, and another flagon of pumpkin juice. He licked his fingers and tried to look at the sketch which, from the vague mutterings and wand-taps of the artist, must be finished.

"Sit still, will you?"

"I'm bored. Can I read one of your books?"

"There's only one. And no, you can't read it."

"Why not?"

"Because I said so."

"Why? Because it's a Muggle book? I have heard of George Orwell, you know. We read Nineteen Eighty-Four in Muggle Studies." And Hermione had sighed and let him read her notes when he got distracted and stopped part-way through. The Pink Floyd record was niggling at his brain, too. He was sure he'd heard the name of the band before, but couldn't quite place it. The glimpse he'd had of the box's contents had been too fleeting for him to make proper sense of them.

"And did you finish it?"

"No. So can I read your copy? If I don't finish it it's not like it'll be a new experience for me or Muggle literature in general."

Severus glared and gestured with his wand. The lid of the box snapped closed and it growled.

"Oh. Well, if you insist."

Severus stood and stared down at him. "I do insist. And I need to get something from the dorm. Here." He dropped a slim volume in front of Harry. "If you need to do some reading take this," he sneered.

Harry blinked at the book.

Draco would find this in the library. It was the potions book Snape had written in.

Harry picked it up. "Thanks," he said.

Severus stared at him for a moment, then whirled and was gone. The door shut softly behind him.

Maybe he hadn't grown into the whole slamming-doors-shut behind him thing yet, Harry thought with a tired yawn.

ooOOoo

A/N: Next chapter: I solemnly swear I am up to no good.